Adobe promises faster Mac Flash

Adobe promises faster Mac Flash

In the midsts of a debate as to whether HTML5 will make Flash redundant, Adobe is releasing an update to the plug-in on Mac OS X that is expected to "get us to the point where Mac will be faster than Windows for graphics rendering." You can get the beta on the Adobe Labs site.

With major players like YouTube trialing HTML5 versions of their sites Adobe has to keep an eye on Flash's performance which is often blamed for crashing browsers and high CPU loads. While HTML5 video playback definitely has performance benefits Flash still has some advantages over it such as fullscreen playback, but for how long?

Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch said, "With Flash Player 10.1, we are optimizing video rendering further on the Mac and expect to reduce CPU usage by half, bringing Mac and Windows closer to parity for video." Via CNet.

The shop I work for does a lot of custom mapping applications. We use Flash instead of Javascript due to browser inconsistencies with Javascript.

So all this talk of HTML5 replacing Flash has me curious - anyone have any examples of a feature rich online application using HTML5? Even better, does anyone have an example of online maps using HTML5?

This is the 10.1 beta, released in December 09. Why didn't Adobe espouse the Mac improvements then? The new "faster Mac" statement 2 months later reeks of a reaction to iPad release and HTML 5. A bit too late to be anything but desperate hype.